Walter Raleigh

Sir Walter Raleigh (22 January 1552-29 October 1618) was an English politician, adventurer, and soldier. Best known for his founding of the Virginia colony of Roanoke in 1583 and his plundering of Spanish shipping in the New World, he was a favourite and lover of Queen Elizabeth I of England. Raleigh was killed by her successor, James I of England, to appease Spain.

Biography
Raleigh was born to a Protestant family in Devon, and he later moved to Westmeath in Ireland, where he suppressed rebellions and fought in the Siege of Smerwick against the Papal States and Spain in 1580. Raleigh became an adventurer afterwards, and in 1583 launched an expedition to the Ocracoke Inlet in present-day North Carolina in the United States. Raleigh planned to establish a contested colony in order to raid Spanish galleons heading from the New World back to Spain. In 1583, John White founded Roanoke, a colony that would later fail in the face of Portuguese betrayal, starvation, and Croatan Indian attack.

Having founded the settlement in the Virginia Colony, Raleigh was knighted in 1585 by Queen Elizabeth I of England. He became one of her favourites, and allegedly, one of her lovers. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1591 for marrying one of her ladies, Elizabeth Throckmorton, as Queen Elizabeth felt heartbroken. However, she released him soon after.

In 1594, Raleigh began the search for El Dorado, "the City of Gold" in South America. He published an exaggerated account of his experiences called "El Dorado", whose name he coined. However, after Queen Elizabeth's death in 1604, his voyages had come to an end as he was imprisoned by the new King James I of England, a Catholic Scot who angered many people of the county due to his proclamation of his "divine right" to rule. Raleigh was thrown in the Tower of London, but in 1616 was released to lead a new expedition to find El Dorado. En route he sacked a Spanish outpost and failed to find the city, and Raleigh was beheaded in 1618 by the king to appease Spain.